Tuesday, September 30, 2008

quiet evening- after retrieving the tent & other stuff from gail & tom's after saturday's poop scoop. called raffle winners & hit the couch with a book. probably a good thing i skipped painting. my throat is a bit scratchy and i have lots of work to get done.

in lieu of new work, sharing some of my past fave fall images....

regroup tomorrow to try some golden digital ground on metal to see if theat will work on the quilt pieces. that & more surfing for ideas on how to transfer to metal. maybe try a heat transfer too.....

Monday, September 29, 2008

day 3- another warm one...steve opted out, luckily fay was happy to go back... we got smart & camped the chairs where we would want to see the foo fighters than wandered...more of a sampler day...

i liked the kills, fay not so much, so we left after a few songs. then there was flyleaf, who were good until we started getting sermons, so we exercised our right to change the channel & went looking for something else- which worked out ok b/c we caught alison krauss singing with gillian welch, which was great. this is gillian alone.

checked out & enjoyed heartless bastards & shooter jennings, got some food, then the silverspun pickups, after that the raconteurs. who were really good. jack white is another one of those artists who is just really interesting & amazing.

last up - the foo fighters. dave grohl another talent- from drummer for nirvana to guitar & front man. great charisma, good showman, hell of a guitarist.

i am in awe of the diverse talent we saw this weekend, inspired by the many different ways the musicians communicate & the passion so evident in so many of the shows. all ages represented and enjoying the music. the power of art to bring people together.

speaking of art, this artist ( http://www.williamkstidham.com/ )had large giclees for sale at acl. he does large paintings of musicians (living and dead) called "the sacred heart of jim morrison", (or jerry garcia or dave matthews). i thought they were sort of ooky, and about how i would be offended if i was one of the musicians to think that someone would presume to know my heart.

now that i have read his site & understand a bit more of what he's doing, i am not quite so turned off. i try to figure out how to paint what music means to me all of the time, it seems this is mr. stidham's way of doing that. curious to know what you think-

anyway, we're home, i'm looking forward to some couch time before going back to the salt mines tomorrow. will be getting back on track & back to art tho-

Sunday, September 28, 2008

de'arte! another reason to see live shows....we saw some great music yesterday, and great live shows.

first up, old 97s. not sure how i missed these guys, but they were really good. on ken & kristy's recommendation-

next, drive by truckers. we have the last cd, which is fairly mellow. will now go back in the catalog.... they were great- neil young with southern rock thrown in.

nothing like seeing a show with thousands of your closest friends.....

the festival does a good job of making sure there is free water, and mister fans to keep folks cool. vendors were giving away bandanas soaked in ice water. they have the art of putting on a big festival down pretty well....

the other art that's fun to see is what people come up with for banners so their tribe can find them. pirate flags are big, as they were last year. more peace signs this year it seems- and always flags- texas, u.s., assorted countries.......

robert earl keen doing the road goes on forever. i liked him too- and the crowd was very into the texas singer/songwriter. once again, lotsa guitar......

john fogerty was great. he was having so much fun playing the ccr somgs he hasn't been able to do for so long. his band was tight- the only bad thing was the stream of people walking in front of us to leave (after forcing their way to the front). we finally circled the wagons, but it was unpleasant. one thing acl could do better is try to keep lanes open. i should have practiced the art of zen a bit better, though- i let myself get worked up & lost part of the show because of it. his new work sounds good, will have to check out.

last was beck. never have listened to him much, but have read enough to want to check him out. same time as robert plant & allison kraus, but we were all in agreement on beck.

no disappointment. truly a gifted musician, and an artist who isn't afraid to do different things. everthing from rock to rap with a stop at folk & a few others on the way. made me think of my friend jany who can pick up any medium and create beautiful work.

then to the bus and home. looked like it would be a line & like the easy exit from dylan last year was a fluke, so i went to the can only to come out and find steve & fay long gone. fortunately i managed to catch them and we all got on the same bus.

i may not post again until monday- we'll see how it goes. looking forward to more fun music today- the kills, the raconteurs, heartless bastards, silverspun pickups & foo fighters. haven't heard many of these bands, but that's part of what's great about this, is the chance to be exposed to new music.

Friday, September 26, 2008

day one austin city limits. sun fun wander around and listen to music.....

jackalopes in texas too- here i thought thet were a rarity known only in wyoming

asleep at the wheel....

one of the many flags people bring so they can find each other... we just poach by setting up near one so we can find our way back to the chairs.

jakob dylan & his new band-they were good- will have to buy the cd. played a few wallflowers tunes too- good guitar, as usual.

this gal has a great job- she was signing to the tunes. we were trying to figure out how that works. can feel the music going through us, wonder how the experience is if you can't hear the nuances, but feel the beat & see the words signed..... maybe there are more nuances to the beat than i can tell...

and we heard bobby bare jr (fun) and a few other bands while we were walking around. then we had big fat piggy (and beef & chicken) bbq for dinner..... yum yum yum.

tomorrow is a big music day- drive by truckers, shooter jennings,old 97s, black keys, beck........ so, off to bed-

Thursday, September 25, 2008

here are the pieces from class. husband looked and said "crafty". and they sort of are..... not great art, but they were good practice & the class taught me a bit about what i'm interested in doing. love to know what you think- i do like a few of them.

this one looks like lots of my other work, so it didn't feel very creative, but it did turn out ok-

this didn't photograph very well. people really liked the transfer (which worked quite well) of a phone pole & birds on the wire. but that felt to me like i was just leaving it at a photo, so i added the birds- a transfer in the left and some collage. then i scratched in the bird tracks & around the birds and rubbed in gold oilbar. this is the first one i managed to get a smooth base on.

played with embedding objects on this one, and used some stencils. i think that this & the next earned the "crafty" comment.

this started with gluing the sheet music down. then a few coats of medium, embedded the watercolor paper, transferred the flower in the lower corner, a few more coats, added the heart & border, then scraped down to the bird and scratched in the hearts & notes and rubbed in prussian blue oilbar.

this is the first landscape i've done in a while- started with some of the bleach photos lazertranned on the surface. the bottom is cooler wax put on for texture & scraped a bit, the top layers of hot wax and smooth. another prussian oilbar rub on the bottom for interest. these were gessoed, then the image was glued down, a few layers of medium, then a transfer of the same image.

and now we're in texas! with fay & rob! for 3 days of music and bbq and texmex...

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

these are what i ended the day with yesterday, pretty successfully. transfer on top of a collage. i managed to get the wax smooth, the transfers down without melting or ripping- all good.

we drove to ketchum in time to get through a few galleries- saw some very cool work. encaustic in one- very nice. (good to see air bubbles in hers too!) i really liked the mixed media on metal in the same gallery. awesome large pieces. the artist takes his inspiration from train cars & other used, worn metal items, so the pieces have a really nice worn patina, some barely visible letters, geometric marks, etc. and in the same gallery some casein paintings that i just didn't get at all....

here's peewee in the sculpture garden:

then back to hailey for yummy thai food- including really tasty deep fried appetizers (is deep fried tofu any healthier than anything else saturated in oil?) and great red curry & sizzling beef...

then we went back to the room for a cocktail & to do our homework (soon to be esplained).

kristy starting another nice piece. yes, i called her names often.

this is the homework & result- a very cool process we will use for mixed media down the road. cyantypes- photo paper that exposes in the sun & doesn't need chemicals for processing- just water. so cool.

we drew on transperancies (above) and had to keep asking each other- so the black will be white, right? the end result is below. can also be done from regular photo negatives, and the color changed by dipping in a tea bath.

i will take photos of what i did tomorrow- no good time/ place to do so today. good class, good learning. one fun thing about workshops is seeing what everyone else comes up with. there was some great work going on. i don't feel like any of it was mine. seriously, i did a few pieces i like ok, but nothing great. it's a difficult medium. i had to keep reminding myself it was learning and practice- not turn stuff out for a show.....

i hope that we can find studio space with an encaustic set up to rent by the hour to keep playing. not ready to make the investment yet otherwise.

i did get a better understanding of what i like and where i want to go- i like layering, the idea of looking deeper into a piece to see what will be revealed. i am interested in working with acrylic medium to see how i can build and layer. it won't be as beautiful and luminous as encaustic, but i can make depth and texture and move light through layers. also be interesting to see what the mixed media possibilities are with oil.

great class- great fun- so glad kristy went with me. we're figuring out what the next art adventure will be-

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

photos- here's the art part of the loaded car- lots of goodies, which will prove to come in handy...

and here is beautiful downtown hailey. it is a pretty place, and the weather is great, which makes it nice for walking around at lunch.

this is a tool intensive art form. here's the palette, heat gun, brushes, thermometer & cups.next is a transfer i did. easier on wax- photocopy on warm wax, burnish, rub off paper with water. the trick is when adding layers over not to heat too much, or it breaks up or moves around or melts.

here's kristy working on one of her cool pieces yesterday. and then something i was working on that looked sort of icky by the time i left today, but hopefully better tomorrow.

then there's peewee who enjoys traveling with kristy. hanging out on the bar, in the sculpture garden & at thai restaurants (photos to be downloaded later).

here's the finished tree started above.

this is a hard medium to learn- so many variables, and you need to have the right touch with the heat & the right temp on the surface to get the wanted effect. even collage isn't as easy as it would seem- getting paper to lie flat can be a challenge, and since the wax is cloudy for a while it can be sort of hard to tell what the piece looks like. be curious to see what i think of my problem kids tomorrow.

what i like about it is what attracted me initially- it's organic, it has depth and texture. like other collage/mixed media, i like the ability to layer & create something with depth and interest all the way through.

okey dokey- best get ready for the photo portion of the class tomorrow- drawing on transperancies to make cyanotypes (or something like that).

oh, saw some galleries in ketchum- including one with an encaustic show- and had yummy thai food for dinner.